You know what I just realized that would be cool? If the thanator from Chapter 5 was the same one Neytiri rides at the end of the movie. Their ranges are about 300km, and they hunt alone, so it would make sense, too. Gives that scene where it drops down to let her ride a little more kick! Ah, well. On to Chapter 6.

Jake was up early that morning, when the daylight was still a weak blue outside the windows. He wanted to make sure he had plenty of time to find his way back to Hometree.

A hundred miles away, tucked into a depression in the trunk of a massive treetop, Jake's Avatar still slept peacefully. Curled up against him was Neytiri, desperately seeking warmth as her own warm blood dripped. A rusty stain spilled from the depression and down the side of the tree. On the forest floor, a curious hexapede sniffed at red-spattered leaves near the trunk.

In the Hallelujah Mountains, Jake poked unenthusiastically at a mound of quivering scrambled eggs.

"Do we really have time for this?" he asked Grace, who had pulled up a chair next to him. "And I know there aren't any chickens on Pandora to lay these eggs."

"Don't worry, it's edible," Grace said. "It's pretty good for being six years old."

Jake choked on a gelatinous forkful and quickly took a big swallow of water.

"You could've been done by now," Grace pointed out. She jabbed a fork of her own at his plate. "You've been losing weight. Now eat that crap like a Marine and then we'll get you hooked up."

Resigned, he set to. "Where's Trudy 'n Norm?" he asked through a huge mouthful.

"Supply run," Grace said. "They'll probably be back soon." She tapped her feet back and forth under the table for a few moments, watching Jake eat. "Okay, good enough." She grabbed his plate off the table. "Let's go."

She beat Jake to the link unit, and by the time he'd pulled the cage down she'd already finished calibrating. She leaned over him in the unit.

"Remember, just get back to Hometree. And I bet Neytiri will be looking for you by now, if she isn't already waiting for you to wake up. I can't imagine Mo'at's reaction to her just leaving you alone like that."

"Alright doc, beam me over then. Like to be back to Hometree in time for dinner."

"Yeah, right. Just watch out for thanators this time." She closed the lid on his smart response and hooked him in.

Jake opened his eyes to Pandora's treetops, and there was something in the cavity of the trunk with him, something big, pressing in against him.

"Jesus!" he said, leaping out onto a branch with an unconscious grace he'd never have believed of himself. He whirled around to face the bole, raising an arm in defense automatically.

His wide eyes searched the tree for a few silent heartbeats before he realized what he was looking at.

"Neytiri!" he gasped. When he had moved she had collapsed onto her side in the cavity, so he leaped onto the trunk itself, grasping with one arm the choking tangle of vines and plants that covered it. He reached in automatically to touch her, wake her, and then jerked his hand back.

With the shock of flight fading, his eyes began to absorb more details. Her bow was splintered; her hair in places had been ripped from its careful braids. There was at least one huge gash in her back that he could see. The side of the tree was stained red in a narrow trail down the trunk– he too was covered in blood, dry on his chest, cold and sticky on his legs.

For one black, vertigo-inducing moment, he thought she must be dead. A wave of sick heat prickled up his back and face. Blind with quick panic, he stretched his free hand into the hole, laid it against her chest. Warm. She twitched once under his hand. Blood pounded painfully in his ears, but he could breath again.

Later, he would puzzle to Grace about why the thought of Neytiri's death hurt more than even the reality of Tom's. Grace would merely roll her eyes and say "Hormones", laughing to hide her concern.

"Okay," Jake said. "Alright." He perched at the very front of the depression, as far back as he could to give himself room to maneuver. "Alright, this is going to hurt."

He reached in and grasped Neytiri's shoulders, trying to get the leverage to sit her upright. When he finally had her with her back against the wall, he crawled a little further into the hole and laid his face against her neck. A thready pulse jumped under his cheekbone while he fished his hands behind her back. Wincing at the feel of the torn flesh there, he slowly began to slide backwards, pulling her along inch by inch.

Just as Jake had worked her to the edge of the hole, she came to, hissing weakly as he tugged at her.

Jake jerked back in order to face her. "Hey," he said, "Hey." He tapped her cheek lightly and peered into her heavy-lidded eyes.

"Jake," she said quietly.

"Yeah, right here."

She looked down at herself, and Jake had to grab her to keep her from toppling. Her eyes slid closed.

Jake gently slapped her cheeks, trying to capture her eyes. "Neytiri, what happened?"

The Na'vi princess shook her head. "Home," whispered. "Please take me back."

"Yeah, working on it," Jake said, glancing over his shoulder, down the long, winding trunk. "I'm gonna have to carry you. Can you hold on?"

Neytiri nodded fractionally.

He had to sit on the closest branch to the hole, which was a few feet lower on the bole. He held his arms up as Neytiri feebly pushed herself out into the air. He caught her, wincing as she drew a breath in over her teeth, and carefully arranged her into a fireman's carry, so he could use one arm to aid his descent.

It was a torturous climb down for them both, and by the time the soft forest floor was under Jake's feet again, he was heaving for breath, arms trembling from the strain.

Jake set Neytiri down as gently as he could, pressing her forward to lie on her stomach. He blanched when he saw the extent of the wounds on her back – the skin was pink and jaggedly torn, bleeding again from the descent. He knew immediately that she had already lost too much blood. If he carried her back to Hometree, she'd be dead by the time he arrived. And the longer they stayed here, the more likely the scent of blood would draw... god, what? Something big.

From his throat came a growling noise his human body would never make. Beneath his frantic conscious a sub current of thought was thrumming with his heart: You were in trouble. Neytiri saved you. Neytiri is in trouble. Save Neytiri.

He stood indecisive for another moment before suddenly coming upon an answer that was probably insane, but also his best option. He sank into a crouch next to Neytiri.

"Neytiri. Neytiri! Wake up. I need you to think for a minute. Do you know where we are? Okay. I need directions."

After repeating to himself several times their location relative to Hometree, Jake scooped Neytiri up and set her down gently in a tangle of roots not dissimilar to where he'd tried to escape the thanator. He sat down next to her, putting his back against one particularly massive gnarl.

"I need you to stay with it, okay?" he said to her. "Just for a little while."

"I do not think this is a good idea, Jake," she murmured.

"You're right," Jake said. "It's a bad idea. But it'll work."

Neytiri nodded at him, baring her fangs in a token snarl.

"Okay," Jake said. "Yeah. I got this." He had to make it just hard enough to do the job, but not hard enough to last long. Breathe in. He leaned forward away from the root and closed his eyes. He'd never done this intentionally before. Now breathe out. He whipped his head back, hard, and saw only a flash of bright white. Then he was back in his link unit, only a little over an hour since he'd left.

"Jake!" Grace said, leaping up from her station at the microscope. "What in the hell?"

He finished pushing open the link unit. "Neytiri's dying, doc. We need help."

"Neytiri's – what? And how did you get knocked out again?"

"Hard root, soft head. Listen, Neytiri's hurt bad, she's lost a lot of blood. I can't carry her all the way back to Hometree, I don't know if she'd make it."

"Son of a bitch," Grace muttered, shucking off her lab coat and throwing it at a chair. "Stay," she commanded, then ran off into the forward section of the improvised lab.

She returned a minute later with Norm and Trudy. Norm had a bag of chocolate covered pretzels in his hand and a look of blank shock on his face. Trudy was all business.

"Tell me where you guys are," she said shortly.

"Twenty miles or so south of Hometree," Jake said. "Maybe more. Neytiri says there are four really tall trees – taller than the rest – near where we are, arranged kind of in a tight square."

Grace sighed in relief. "I know that place. It's a Hometree in its early stages – a young grove beginning to grow together into one bigger organism. I was going to take samples there eventually."

"Then you're up front," Trudy said, grabbing her helmet off a table and strapping it under her chin. She glanced over at Norm, who had dropped his pretzels and was rapidly configuring both his and Grace's link unit at the same time.

Hoping his Avatar had recovered by now, Jake lied back down in his unit. "We'll be waiting," he said before pulling the lid closed.

Grace slid into her link unit. "Trudy, get us ready to go." The pilot took off through the door. Grace half sat up to look at the other scientist. "Norm - you're going to be our gunner. If anything tries to stop us, scare it off or shoot it down."

She leaned back and made a mental list of the medical supplies that would be any good for use on a Na'vi. It was a short list. She shifted uncomfortably - something was poking into her from her back pocket. A crumpled pack of cigarettes, now in her hand, now thrown out into the lab as the lid closed.

The cigarettes bounced off the table onto the gray floor, and outside the engines of Trudy's Samson roared to life.